Winter Visitors, local connections
Multiple family guests over the year-end; building a local community
One of our favorite things to do is hosting visitors and showing people around Portugal. We have one-day visits to Porto and Lisbon down to a science (as long as you’re willing to walk), and we can explore our home turf of Coimbra and the local area for days. Other relatively-unknown gems like Óbidos, Braga, Nazaré, Sintra, Cascais, Lagos, Braga, Guarda and others fill in the gaps depending on what folks want to see. Not to mention our proximity to Spain, just a relatively short drive away.
Thus we were excited to meet Efti’s youngest sister Fidelia “Fifi” and family in Seville. They flew into Barcelona and drove a rental car down to meet us. The only snafu was there was a little bit of miscommunication about how big a “medium” sized suitcase was. What we thought was a “medium” sized suitcase seemed to be “large” in reality. There have been a couple times when I wished Feijão was larger – this was one.
Somehow we managed to squeeze two large suitcases, four adults, a tween and three full backpacks into Feijão for the trip back to Coimbra. Those endless hours of Tetris I played in college were well spent, and it barely affected my grades. 😏 The heavy load cut down on Feijão’s range, but I had anticipated that and made sure the tire pressure was appropriately set before we left.
Although the weather was a little cold and wet during their visit, we managed to explore Coimbra and Porto on foot, and got in a nice bike ride around Coimbra as well. The day in Porto included about 6km of walking, up and down both sides of the Douro River valley.
After an enjoyable visit, we took them back to Madrid to catch a flight. We swapped out one of the large bags for a true medium-sized bag to improve the fit in Feijão. We’re getting better at navigating the Spain EV charging experience, especially the fast chargers along the routes through central Spain. Thankfully there is a concerted effort underway to improve the EV charging experience in Spain.
We then made a short visit to Toledo, one of the famous cities along Don Quixote’s trip through Spain, and home to some interesting Islamic architecture. Toledo is very picturesque, and sits on a beautiful bend of the Tagus river, meaning that one could raft from Toledo to Lisbon.
The reason we stuck around the Madrid area was because we were due to meet Efti’s sister Ita and family a few days later. With them, we explored Madrid together, including Plaza Mayor and the Plaza de Armeria. Madrid is a large city and difficult to explore quickly, but we hit the high points like the outlet malls and Costco. 😅
An unexpectedly beautiful city we encountered on the drive to Madrid was Ávila, a well-maintained, walled city that seems to rise up out of the plains as you drive up, with the bright, white walls shining in the night. We’ve decided to stay a night or two in Ávila on our next trip. (There are two Costco stores in Madrid. We bought a membership, so we’ll be back.)
We dragged Ita and family around Porto and Coimbra in much the same way we did with Fifi’s family. We also added visits to the surfing mecca of Nazaré, although the waves weren’t anything special while we were there, and the Portuguese walled city of Óbidos, one of our favorites.
Sandwiched in between and after the visits, we continue to stay busy with different groups of friends. Rustam has joined the Clube Fluvial de Coimbra, a kayak and canoe club whose members paddle on the Mondego River twice a week. The “sócio” also does a wide range of other activities together, including hikes, movie nights, dancing, bike rides, skiing, dinners and just gathering for coffee. They have been very kind and welcoming to fully embrace us into their circle, and we enjoy all of the different activities. Aside from making friends and all the fun activities, it’s a good chance for us to practice our Portuguese, and for them to practice their English.
Additionally, I am attempting to start up an Ultimate Frisbee community in Coimbra. Over the winter, there were very few participants in the cold and wet weather. However, as the weather has improved, turnout has improved. There’s even a chance Coimbra will field a team for the annual national university tournament this spring, which would be a first. The first few players were expats, but most new players are university of Coimbra students. There is a chance that I will teach a university course on Ultimate this fall. “Coach Kocher” might become “Professor Kocher”.
While the chilly and wet winter in Central Portugal had an impact on turnout for Ultimate Frisbee, it proved a successful test for the new windows we had installed this summer. With the old windows, sometimes it was colder inside the apartment than it was outside! When the music festival season starts in late spring, we’ll find out how much noise-blocking they provide.
Love the panorama pictures, looks like it was a great trip!
After being here in Coimbra almost 8 months, our calendar is starting to fill up with visitors - some might even overlap. Thanks for sharing your insights to hosting visitors.